Lillian Rosanoff Lieber and Hugh Gray Lieber

This husband and wife team of a mathematician (Lillian) and
illustrator (Hugh) influenced many generations of mathematically inclined
readers, who stumbled on one of the Lieber books in their youth and were
intrigued by their style of explaining complicated mathematics in simple
language. Three of the most popular were The Einstein Theory of Relativity
(1936 and later editions), Infinity (1953) and The Education of T C
Mits (The Celebrated Man In The Street) (1942 and later editions).

In my case I found her book explaining general relativity
in the public library of the small village of Florida in rural New York State where I grew
up when I was in 9th grade (?) in the mid sixties and was fascinated by
the concepts that were still beyond my abilities to comprehend. Eventually I
found my way into theoretical physics and general relativity as a profession. I
still remember how impressed I was by "tensors" and thought I would really be
accomplished when I understood them. More recently my friend David sent me a
copy of The Education of TC Mits which I happily read and was pleasantly
surprised at the timeless message it contains about relying on reasoning to
understand how the world works, politically as well.

Lillian (1886-1986)and
two of her illustrious brothers (chemist Martin Andre
Rosanoffand psychiatrist Aaron
Joshua Rosanoff, California's director of institutions, 1939-1942)
were among the four children of Clara and Abraham Rosenberg. Lillian headed the
math
department at Long Island University and
the Galois Institute of Mathematics and Art in Brooklyn, N.Y., retiring in the 1950s and
outliving all who might have known about her [not true, there was at least a
niece who carried on the family line as the daughter of another brother Joseph]. She died in obscurity at 99.
Today in 2003 there is no trace of the Galois Institute on the web other than as
the publisher of some math/science books in the first half of the twentieth
century (Galois Institute Press), and there are few known archival materials anywhere on Lillian.
Her university does not seem to acknowledge her part in their history.

The last lines of Lillian's
preface to the collected works of her chemist brother Martin Andre Rosanoff
published by her Galois Institute reveal a bit of the strong emotions that must
have fueled her mission of encouraging ordinary people to think more rationally
about the world. The Liebers were a remarkable couple who actually tried to do something to influence ordinary people into considering using their own minds and some logical thinking to interpret the world instead of blindly following religious or political or patriotic dogma, something the
general public so sorely needs these days.

If you know of any materials on the Liebers or were
yourself influenced by one of their books when you were young or would like to
see any of her books republished, please respond to the email links on the
following page:

This website was established in 2003 when a web search drew a certain
Mr E to
bob's web page reference to the Liebers. Mr E was doing a study on two of
Lillian's brothers, and contributed the web page asking
for people to contact him with their anecdotes about the influence of these
books on their own lives. However, unfortunately his obsession with remaining
anonymous to the public world caused him to shut down his then current email
contact address in December 2005 and cease all communication with bob and david
(both Princeton physics alumni, class of 1974) who were left to read and respond to the
email now arriving sporadically from many others like ourselves who felt touched
by the Liebers' work. Our attempts to interest publishers in republishing some
of these books were stalled for some time by the orphaned copyright issue.
[We are in contact with a grand nephew and grand niece, but the copyright
somehow apparently left the family before Lillian's death.]

However, independently of us, Paul Dry
Books in Philadelphia took an interest and somehow managed to deal with
the copyright issues. Thank you Paul! Three books are now available. Please
support this small publisher by ordering one of them.